Fox Lake Man Admits Role In Bosnia Gun Sales

A Fox Lake gun dealer pleaded guilty Thursday in federal court in Chicago to charges that he falsified federal records for guns that wound up in war-torn parts of what was once Yugoslavia.

In pleading guilty before U.S. District Judge John Nordberg, Richard Tylkowski, 65, admitted he also lied to federal agents when he was questioned about the sale of the guns. Thursday marked the second time Tylkowski has been convicted in federal court in Chicago this year.

In February, U.S. District Judge Suzanne Conlon sentenced Tylkowski of 176 E. Grand Ave. to 6 1/2 years in prison and sentenced his son Timothy, 28, of Spring Grove to 8 years and a month in prison.

As part of a plea agreement entered in federal court Thursday, Tylkowski was expected to be sentenced this fall to 18 months in prison to run concurrently with the earlier sentence.

The Tylkowskis were convicted in December of selling guns to an undercover agent of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. The agent was working with an informant who was a member of an area gang.

The Tylkowskis were arrested in September after they sold an undercover ATF agent five Mac-11 machine pistols for $7,500 in a deal consummated outside a fast-food restaurant on U.S. Highway 12 in Fox Lake.

According to federal authorities, Richard Tylkowski continued to conspire to ship guns illegally overseas even after he learned he was under federal investigation.

In October, he was indicted on charges that he and others conspired to ship at least five loads of small arms and thousands of rounds of ammunition by air freight from O'Hare International Airport. He also was charged with lying to a federal agent and falsifying gun sales records.

Investigators said evidence indicated that the beneficiaries may have been lightly armed Croatians opposing Serbian army units in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Four of the shipments reached their destination, authorities said.

A fifth shipment was intercepted after a customs inspector at O'Hare questioned why anyone would fly an above-ground swimming pool to Yugoslavia when the cost of doing so greatly exceeded the cost of the pool. When he inspected the packages, he found revolvers, handguns and machine pistols inside cartons marked swimming pools, water heaters, ice makers and air conditioners.

The parcels were trucked to O'Hare as property of D&D Europa Delivery and ALO Enterprises, both import-export firms, and flown out of the country on JAT Airlines, a European carrier, according to federal authorities.

In all, 65 handguns and machine pistols were seized last fall as a result of the O'Hare inspector's intervention.

Federal authorities said Richard Tylkowski compiled the arms at the request of his co-conspirators, who arranged for their transport. As part of the plea agrement, the conspiracy charges against Tylkowski were dropped.

As a licensed gun dealer, Tylkowski was required to maintain records of gun transactions. He pleaded guilty to falsifying sales records relating to the Yugoslavian shipments.